December 25 2020
The Majlis Research Center says unemployment in the Islamic Republic is twice what the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) has published.
In a report issued this month, the research arm of the parliament said it calculated unemployment in Iran in the second quarter of the Persian year at 18.5 percent. A few weeks earlier, the official Statistical Center of Iran said unemployment in that quarter was 9.5 percent.
It was one of the few quarters when the Statistical Center has found unemployment below 10 percent. And the SCI said unemployment in that quarter—the summer—was less than in the same quarter a year ago. Few found that credible since the coronavirus epidemic was raging in that quarter. Most countries had surging unemployment rates.
The Majlis Research Center said the problem was that the SCI doesn’t count anyone as unemployed if they are not in the labor force and they are not counted as being in the labor force if they are not actively seeking work.
This is a common and acceptable definition internationally. But in Iran, few people are employed as salaried workers. Most just get periodic work and are rated as self-employed and don’t show up in the unemployed ranks.